Essequibians adhere to COVID measures to celebrate Phagwah

Mar 30, 2021 News

By Romario Blair

Phagwah celebrations on the Essequibo Coast.

Kaieteur News – On Sunday, Guyanese, despite their religious or cultural backgrounds, joined their Hindu brothers and sisters, to celebrate Phagwah, the festival of colours.
Phagwah, which is generally known as Holi, is celebrated with the belief, that good triumphs over evil. The festival also celebrates the arrival of spring, and signals a time for fun, forgiveness and the mending of broken relationships.
The celebration this year, however, was quite different than usual, due to the deadly COIVD-19 pandemic. The festival that once saw persons turning out in vast numbers to celebrate, was this year limited to only a few persons in a confined area.
On the Essequibo Coast, the regular marching on Phagwah day was ditched, and replaced by small groups of a few friends and neighbours. Kaieteur News was able to catch up with former president of the Sparta Mandir, Mr. Bharat Parmanand.
When asked how this year’s celebration was affected due to the pandemic, Parmanand said, “Everything was well but the problem was, we were not able to have so much people around, as we use to. We didn’t do the road marching around the community; we just march from the area where we burn the Holika to the mandir.”
Parmanand explained that the Sparta Mandir observed the COVID-19 regulations, given the severity of the virus. “This year, we took all the COVID-19 precautions and we ensure persons had on their masks. Fortunately for us, persons adhered to that and they were comfortable because whoever was more afraid felt safer because the rules were kept. We had a regular service with over 80 to 90 persons because the temple is bigger,” he added.
A big part of the Phagwah celebrations is the singing of chowtal from community to community. This aspect of the celebration involves Hindus marching in a crowd, as they sing religious songs. Kaieteur News understands that due to the social distancing and public gathering guidelines, this custom was not embraced this year.
When asked if the significance of Holi was generally affected by COVID-19 this year, Parmanand, who was previously mentioned, said, “it did affect the significance, in our village; we used to look forward to Holi…everybody come together and have a nice celebration without alcohol. We used to have half of the village and community come out and walk about singing chowtal… After, we attend the Phagwah mala for the finale.”
Based on what this publication observed this year on the Essequibo Coast, more persons celebrated the festival amongst their family and immediate neighbours, rather than the usual extravagant celebration in the streets.

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